Apparao Galleries is exhibiting Madhavan Palanisamy’s photographs, based on the colours, textures and visual treats of Chennai’s vibrant culture. Using photography and digital manipulation, Palanisamy has attempted to reconstruct the fragments that he comes across daily.

Alliance Française de Madras presents French artist Christiane Durand’s series of 18 paintings, inspired by her visits to the temples and sanctuaries of the Chola territory in south India. Durand became fascinated with the Hindu god Vishnu’s avatars, and this is reflected in her paintings.

To celebrate its third anniversary, High Time hosts a “War of the DJs" competition, where DJs from all over the country will compete to win the coveted prize of Best DJ. The judges include DJs Ajmal and Venky from Chennai and MCs Colin “Freestyle Rapper" and Dhwani Rao. Also catch celebrities DJ Sash (from Bangalore) and DJ Kaz (from Pune) performing.

Storytrails, a service that provides creative outings and alternative tours, is organizing a race in association with the Madras Bulls. Forty bikers will speed through Chennai, cracking exciting clues that would also draw on stories of grand ambitions and unexpected revolutions. The event is scheduled to start at St Thomas Mount and will end at Fort St George.

DakshinaChitra showcases Kerala’s colourful ‘pookolam’ (flower decoration), devotional music and lamps as part of its Onam celebrations. This year’s highlight is a Padayani (masked dancers) troupe from Kadammanitha in Kerala. There will also be a mask-making workshop,?collages by V.V. Ramani and Malayali delicacies.

An exhibition of photos of Patel twins from London and Gujarat by photographer Ketaki Sheth. Sheth once attended a Diwali party in Kent, UK, and discovered that the Patel community had a large number of twins. She later learnt that one in 300 members of the Patel community is an identical twin, and one in 90 a fraternal twin. Sheth was so excited by the statistic that she decided to capture it using her lens. The monochrome photographs of her collection Twinspotting, which was released as a book in 1999, diligently documents these Patel twins from Britain and Gujarat.

Celebrating women in music with some of the most commercially successful bands the country has to offer. For this edition, Shaa’ir + Func bring their Eastern-flavoured electronics to the Girls Wanna Rock fest.

Murray Schisgal’s 1964 Broadway Luv was an existential comedy that mocked Freudian psychoanalysis and the commodified, watered-down version of love that’s often mistaken for the real thing. Sandhya Divecha’s Love on the Brink, directed by Lillete Dubey, is an adaptation of Luv. Sudipto “Bandy" Bandopadhyay is about to end his life when his old college pal Panjak Chopra intervenes. Bandy has never recovered from the humiliation of being peed on by a dog in a park, and is prone to breakdowns. Pankaj cajoles and kicks Bandy, pushing him to believe in the value of life. He asks him the recurring question: “What about love?"

5.30pm and 7.30pm. Epicentre, Gurgaon. Donor passes, Rs1,000 (all proceeds will be used for the healthcare expenses of critically ill children, via Genesis Foundation). For details, call Kavita Nayyar (9990008790) or send an email at kavita.nayyar@genesis-foundation.net

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Film

Anime Cine Experience

20-22 August

Cine Darbaar has organized an anime (Japanese animation) festival, with screenings of ‘The Girl who Leapt through Time’ on 20 August (7pm); ‘Voices of a Distant Star’, ‘5 Centimetres Per Second’ and ‘The Place Promised in our Early Days’ on 21 August; and ‘Chibi Maruko-Chan’ and ‘Grave of the Fireflies’ on 22 August.

Directed by Lucrecia Martel, La Cienaga focuses on the households of middle-aged cousins, the kind and sensible Tali and the more neurotic and self-centred Mecha, over the course of a summer. Based in and around Mecha’s country house, the plot also spotlights the lives of Mecha’s adolescent children. The film depicts a general stasis: an inertia and redundancy which creeps up on Mecha and threatens to suffocate her in a quiescent alcoholic haze. Martel’s densely layered portrayal manages to capture the bleak lives of the film’s protagonists.

Project S.T.R.I.P. is a satire about greedy corporations, an armed man called Abu, ex-Navy recon agent Roy and anthropologist-activist Aarti. Directed by Quasar Thakore Padamsee, it’s a rather whimsical play, saying nothing new about environmental degradation, and while the script has its share of clever lines, all sense is sacrificed at times for effortless silliness. But the play, particularly the parody of corporate culture, will make you laugh. 2 hours.

6.30pm. Experimental Theatre, National Centre for the Performing Arts, Nariman Point (66223737). Tickets, Rs250, available at the box office daily from 9am-7pm.

The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs

26 August

Mike Daisey, an American comedian, social commentator and big fan of Apple products, began discovering another side to the “Apple experience" after reading about labour conditions in Shenzhen, China, where the company’s products are made. Finding that very few US journalists wrote about working conditions in China, Daisey travelled to the country’s south-eastern boom city to investigate for himself. His discoveries form the subject of his new play .

The master flautist lets his flute do the talking at the Tata Theatre. The Concert for Tranquility, organized in memory of Kiran Khanna, features a recital by the celebrated bansuri exponent.

6.30pm. Tata Theatre, National Centre for the Performing Arts (66223737).

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Around town

The Corona Monsoon Project

21 August

Belgian beatboxer Primitiv and US performance painter Max Neutra are aiming for the sky during their six-week stay in India. Apart from performances on the ground, they are also hoping to give performances 20,000ft up, to a presumably shocked plane-load on a SpiceJet flight from Delhi to Goa. It’s the kind of alternative experience they are hoping to create for audiences around the country.

Goethe Institut will be screening two documentaries by Anirban Datta, a writer, film-maker and photographer based in Kolkata. The first film, Chronicle of Amnesia (29 minutes), is based on characters who are in the process of disappearing into the domain of amnesia. In for Motion (59 minutes) is a visual essay on the dramatic changes in India in the last two decades.

The US consulate general, Kolkata, and the Birla Academy of Art and Culture are presenting an exhibition showcasing the artistic heritage of the US. The exhibition comprises 40 framed reproductions of significant American art (including paintings, crafts, sculpture, photography and architecture).

3-8pm (closed on Mondays and public holidays), Third floor, Gallery, Birla Academy of Art and Culture, 108-109, Southern Avenue. For details, log on to http://picturingamerica.neh.gov

Photography

Alok Rekhay

Till 25 August

Alok Rekhay, a Kolkata-based photography club, is holding its eighth exhibition. Sixty-five works by 17 members are on display; the themes range from football to landscapes.

ITC Sonar presents Liang’s China—an extensive range of authentic food from various regions of China by chef Liang, originally from Great Wall Sheraton Beijing and now executive Chinese chef at the ITC-Welcomgroup. Dishes include Tea-Smoked Duck, Poached Red Snapper in special Szechwan chilli pepper oil. For the vegetarians, there are a number of dishes made of Chinese greens, mushrooms and tofu.

Santoor Ashram, a Kolkata-based musical institute set up by santoor maestro Tarun Bhattacharya, presents a full-day dance workshop by eminent Odissi dancer Sanchita Bhattacharya. The workshop focuses on the abhinay (expression) aspect of dance based on the navaras (nine moods). It’s open to dance students from any genre.

Missionaries of Charity, Archbishop house, Signis India (World Catholic Association for Communication) and Unesco present the Mother Teresa International Film Festival on the eve of Mother’s birth centenary. Fifteen films from India, the US, France, Spain, Italy, Japan and Canada will be screened. The films include ‘Mother Teresa’ (1986), directed by Ann and Jeanette Petrie, and ‘Madre Teresa’ by Fabrizio Costa (2003).

Jyotsna Jagannathan, a student of A. Lakshman (the artistic director of the Chennai-based dance school Nrithyalakshana), will perform items of a traditional margam. Jagannathan’s main piece, the

varnam, is a Tanjore Quartet composition titled Manavi Chekkonara—the story of a heroine dealing with the indifferent Brihadeeswarar, the deity at the Peruvudaiyar Kovil, Tanjore. Jagannathan will end with a thillana, a pure-dance sequence, that she has choreographed herself.

Part of the fourth Indo-German Film Festival hosted by the Goethe Institut, in collaboration with the Suchitra Film Society and the Asian Film Foundation, this is the premiere of Girish Kasaravalli’s latest film. Based on the Siddha tribe of north Karnataka, Kanasembo Kuderayaneri (Riding the Stallion of a Dream) tells the story of Irya, a grave digger who finds himself out of work because everyone in the village simply refuses to die. 1 hour 50 minutes.

Tenali Rama’s meteoric rise to fame and royal favour for his sharp wit and ability to sort out seemingly intractable problems hasn’t gone down well with his peers in the court of Krishnadevaraya, monarch of the Vijayanagara empire. Determined to yank him off the expressway to greatness, his adversaries hatch plots galore. 1 hour 45 minutes.

Brothers Polyneices and Eteocles are killed in the Thebes civil war. Creon, the ruler of Thebes, declares that Eteocles will not be given a proper burial—instead, his body will be left in the open for vultures to feed on. In defiance, Eteocles’ sister Antigone attempts to bury her brother’s body. Written in 1943, while France was occupied by Germany, the play presents Antigone’s rebellion as a statement against enforced authority.

Director by Satyadev Dubey, and performed by Ratna Pathak Shah and Naseeruddin Shah, among others.

Riktam Matkin and Bansi Quinteros are Growling Mad Scientists. The Dutch psytrance duo’s sonic formulations, which have evolved over 10 studio albums and countless live shows, are characterized by thumping bass lines and clever use of guitars and vocals, as well as significant influences from pop culture.

Part of the ongoing festival of Shakespeare films, Orson Welles’ ‘Othello’ showcases the director’s incredible cinematic prowess and his command over the elements of his medium. Each frame is thick with dramatic tension, and Welles himself plays a hulking, cloaked Othello who prowls the interiors of the castle as he tries desperately to fight the ravages of jealousy, his rich, deep baritone rolling exquisitely over the hypnotic rhythms of Shakespeare’s monologues. Micheál Mac Liammóir counterpoints superbly as a reptilian Iago. 1 hour 31 minutes.